Although the majority of residential and small business respondents to the ACA survey were aware of the Consumer Service Guarantee (CSG), which imposes a strict timeframe for fixed-line carriers to connect phones, repair faults and keep appointments, three quarters of them were not aware of their rights to compensation if such timeframes were not met.
The Consumer Awareness and Information Needs Survey 2001 found that just 28 percent of residential and 25 percent of small business respondents were aware of the CSG compensation clause.
However, the ACA said that an amendment to the CSG in 2000 assures service providers automatically compensate consumers.
-That was a major development in taking the onus away from the consumer being aware and having to make an application for it [compensation]," Robyn Meikle, manager of consumer awareness at the ACA, told ZDNet Australia.
The ACA would not disclose on how much compensation was paid by carriers in the 2000/2001 financial year, saying the data is to be publicised in its annual telco performance report later this month.
The ACA would neither comment on its monitoring of carriers to ensure compensation is automatically paid.
T(H)elstra may have compensated ADSL users in July,August & September, however it made good use of the credits by taking the Network off-line as well as causing unscheduled interruption on a daily basis. Even after the upgrades, email, authentication & network interruption and problems continued right up till the Xmas holidays.
Curious, the network was reasonably stable over the Xmas/New Year break !!!!
Numerous phone calls to the billing department for addional credits for the on-going problems after September, resulted in the answer "You have had all the credits you are going to receive". They have flatly refused to issue anymore credits.
THANK YOU T(H)ELSTRA